


lonely rivers sigh

by malevon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump, Yearning, descriptions of violence, set in season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevon/pseuds/malevon
Summary: Jon finds himself knocking at Martin's door after a failed hunt.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 72





	lonely rivers sigh

**Author's Note:**

> title from "unchained melody"
> 
> lockpicking instructions copied and pasted directly from wikihow

_Knock. Knock._

That’s all Jon can manage before he tilts forward, his forehead settling into the crevice in the doorframe, his knees just barely able to stay locked, his hand splaying on Martin’s door. _Martin’s door?_ _Why was he…?_

He’s not going to answer. Jon knows that. Jon knows that, even though he’s standing here, sure that he’s closer to death than he’s ever going to get again, and Martin would never… would never let that happen. Or maybe he would. Especially after his _intervention_. Maybe Martin would let him die again. He would be so disappointed. Jon finds that he doesn’t care; at least, not at the moment. He does what used to be his job, and files it away, organizing his thoughts by relevance and topic. He can’t think too hard about Martin right now. Can’t. 

_** To pick a lock, you'll need a tension wrench, which will turn the lock, and a pick, which will pop the pins inside of the lock so that it can be turned. If you don't have professional lock-picking tools, you can pull the end of a paper clip out to form a 90 degree angle with the rest of the clip, or use the bumpy end of a bobby pin for your pick.  ** _

Like a puppet with his strings being pulled, Jon feels his hand reach up to the back of his head, and, blessedly, finds a bobby pin he doesn’t quite remember putting there. 

He lets the Eye walk him through breaking into Martin’s flat, his shaking hands making the process take much longer than it should; in total, he’s hovering in the doorway for about forty-five minutes, leaning up against the wall and likely staining the wood with the blood he _knows_ is on him somewhere. It also doesn’t help that he’s not looking at his hands, and he’s operating blindly. As blindly as an avatar of the fear of being watched can be. 

The door does eventually give way, and Jon very nearly collapses straight onto Martin’s metaphorical welcome mat (he doesn’t have one anymore, not in this Lukas flat, not in this place where everything is just so _cold_ ) before just barely catching himself on the doorframe before he would have folded. It takes him another 43 seconds to find it in himself to start walking again, his body having become so adjusted to sitting still that any further movement makes it scream at him, and there’s a pain hidden in his side that he can’t seem to shake but he’s so used to pain that he cannot shake, so used to this constant stream of dull, pure _ache_ that he simply walks forward and accepts whatever comes with it. 

Jon had already registered that it was cold. Already knew it would be, already Knew it would be. The jacket he has on (Martin’s, of course, damn it) does nothing to wane the cold pervading through his bones. He hates this. Martin is warmth, is supposed to be warmth, has always been warmth, even on his worst days, when he would walk into the office on a Monday morning and Jon, social ineptitude and all, could tell that something had been bothering him. Always giving smiles. The few times that he’s graced Jon with his presence in the last handful of months, the surrounding area had dropped a nonzero amount of degrees, leaving Jon shivering, holed up in his office for the rest of the day, bundled up in as many blankets and jumpers left behind as he can find. He’s so worried. No one should be this cold. He’ll get sick, that bastard.

Now where did he keep his painkillers?

The Eye happily offers that information, and Jon goes rifling through cabinets until his clammy palm settles on what he needs, and then downs three of them dry. They linger in his mouth for a hair too long. The grainy taste of paracetamol makes his skin crawl, but it’s nothing, nothing compared to the nausea that makes its home in the center of his gut the second Jon stops moving, the second he takes a moment to brace his hands on the counter and lean forward, takes a moment to simply breathe. To assess the situation.

He’s in Martin’s flat. That much he knows for sure. That’s real. That’s tangible and the chill on his skin in enough evidence of that.

He’s hungry. That much… he also knows for sure. And his most recent jaunt into London’s back alleys at night in search of a meal surely hadn’t gone to plan. Jon shakes his head, as if trying to rid himself of the memory of being ripped out of the compulsion by a fist to his jaw, and having to deal with not only that pain but the pain of the spearing pangs of starvation that pierce in his head, in his gut. Shaking his head was definitely not the right thing to do, however, and Jon finds himself overcome with another wave of vertigo, a lurching in his chest that very nearly sends him to the floor. 

Before his knees can buckle and betray him, there is a sort of _woosh_ from behind him, and Jon is loathe to turn around and see what it is, the extra movement sealing the deal in what was sure to be his descent to the tile floor of Martin’s kitchen.

His vision greys, but never quite blackens; Jon can feel the blessedly cool sensation of the linoleum on his back, on his arms, but anything past that is out of his reach. Someone is. Someone is calling for him, but the noise only serves to make his headache worsen, the painkillers in his system doing nothing for him quite yet. He can feel a hand placed on his side (is that his hand? He doesn’t remember moving his hand there, but he doesn’t remember too much of what’s happened in the last couple of hours anyway, so by all means, it could add up) and subsequently pull back almost immediately, the fingers brushing up against _something_ that is very decidedly _not his body_ but it makes him hurt so badly he wants to _scream_ , to cry out—

“ _ **Don’t**_ ,” comes the compulsion, wrenched from his throat in a mangled cry of desperation, and he hears the _click_ of a mobile and then, and only then, does his body decide to be merciful for once in its life. Jon’s awareness fades, and one thing he can pick up on before it leaves him completely is a hand on his face, cold, cold, cold. 

Martin has never been compelled before, not in the way that Jon uses it, at least. It’s not pleasant.

It’s quite the opposite, actually; his hand was moving to the _call_ button for 999, and then Jon had compelled him and it had been like a _shot_. He’d slammed down his hand, putting his phone on the floor face-down, possibly hard enough to crack the screen. It didn’t matter. Jon had broken into his flat with a knife in his side and that was what mattered right now and Martin wishes he had it in him to dote and fawn and worry but all he can feel is a minor sort of… annoyance.

That’s not true. He knows that’s not true. He knows that’s not true, and the realization makes something cold in his mind thaw. 

“Jon,” Martin says, with as much force and as little adoration as he can muster. He places a hand on Jon’s face, cups his cheek (just feeling for fever, he tells himself, he tells himself, but ignores the lancet of concern that goes through him when he finds it). “Wake up, come on, let’s get you sorted.”

The only response that garners is a low groan from Jon from his position on the floor, and Martin frowns. His skin looks pallid and his eyes sunken (more so than usual, he supposes), the gaunt outline of his cheek and collarbones prevalent from under the veil of thick hair that’s been sweat-slicked to his face. Martin absentmindedly brushes it away, and no pang of the Lonely accompanies that. Peter would be so disappointed. 

“Don’t move,” Martin says after a moment’s deliberation, a plan half-baked in his mind. Jon doesn’t respond, predictably, so Martin allows his gaze to linger for just half a second more before he stands, his knees protesting at the movement, and makes for the bathroom.

Living alone, he doesn’t have many towels. He’ll have to make do.

Martin situates one of his gathered towels under Jon, pushing the fabric under his back and his side as gingerly as he can, trying his damndest not to jostle the smaller man too much, not to move the knife around any more than Jon already heckled it in his jaunt to Martin’s flat. Why he came here, Martin won’t even entertain the thought of giving that too much consideration, but he supposes there weren’t too many other places that would be as _welcoming_ as his flat is. 

Jon, of course, hasn’t moved, but he has stopped breathing, an observation that would terrify him, make his heart stop, were the circumstances at all different. Instead, he places his hand on Jon’s forehead, sighing at the fever that still feels as bad as it did a few scant minutes ago. Martin traces his palm down his cheek, thumbs at the dark circles beneath his eyes, and grits his teeth in preparation for what he has to do. 

“Jon,” he says again, a bit louder than he had the first time. A residual anxiety he hadn’t known was there unwinds itself in his chest when Jon leans into the touch, scrunching his nose and squinting his eyes shut.

“M’tin?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Gonna have to take this out for you to heal.”

Jon opens his eyes then, his gaze cloudy. He looks around, scanning his surroundings, until his gaze settles on Martin’s face above him, and the intensity in his eyes makes Martin want to curl into a ball and never be seen again. It’s too much. He feels pinned. He feels cornered, he feels _threatened—_

“Take… take what out?”

Oh, Christ.

Martin looks at the knife still jammed in Jon’s side. It’s not a large knife by any means, but the red stains on the handle aren’t blood but rust, and he’s probably going to get an infection within the next day or so that Martin won’t be around to help him with. Can’t be around. 

“I’m just going to do it, okay? Nice and slow. Please don’t move too much.”

“Take _what_ out—”

And then Jon _screams_.

His back arches on the floor as Martin tries to take the knife from his ribcage as slowly and as quickly as he can. The whole ordeal doesn’t last more than a few seconds, but after the fact, Jon is panting, pained moans coming out from grit teeth, the knife is tossed aside hastily as if it were molten, Martin pressing a second towel to the exit wound while Jon heals, running his free hand along his hairline, his thumb circling his temple, anything to try and calm him down.

It’s one of the few moments that Martin is grateful for his Lukas-grade soundproof walls, lest 999 be called _for_ them. 

It’s a good ten or so minutes before Jon’s breathing evens out and the towel beneath Martin’s hand stops soaking up new blood. It’s another five minutes before Jon is comfortable enough to sit up. Martin helps him to a sitting position and the sudden change in elevation sends him crashing into Martin’s chest, his limbs, gangly and loose, trailing behind him like a puppet cut from his strings. Martin’s hands come to rest naturally behind his head, in the space between his shoulder blades, and he finds that the warmth Jon is emanating, while concerning, isn’t entirely unwelcome. He squeezes, just the barest hint of pressure, and Jon absolutely _melts_ into it.

Martin squeezes his eyes shut into Jon’s hair. 

He needs to leave.

“Come on now,” Martin says once he feels his resolve freeze over once more. He pulls back from Jon, pushes Jon away. “Let’s get you some water. Get you on your way.”

Jon isn’t stupid. Martin is sure he understands. The look in his eyes once he lifts his head from where it was resting in the crook of Martin’s neck, the deep brown pools of sadness, of yearning, of too many things gone unsaid, shows Martin that he does. He nods. 

He claps a hand on Jon’s shoulder and ignores the way his face falls when Martin stands, fixes him a cup of tap water in a plain glass. He offers Jon a hand, and there’s no zing of warmth that goes through his chest when he takes it; there is only a sensation of skin on skin, and nothing more. 

The next day, Martin washes the towels. 


End file.
